IOC President Thomas Bach on Saturday attended the World Aquatics Championships – Doha 2024 as he watched the final of the Mixed 10m Synchronised Diving at the Hamad Aquatics Centre. Accompanying the IOC president were World Aquatics President Husain al-Musallam, World Aquatics Executive Director Brent Nowicki and Doha 2024 General Director Khaleel al-Jaber. The delegates watched on as the Chinese pair Jianjie Huang and Jiaqi Zhang claimed gold with a dominant performance.
Speaking following the event, Bach said: “I am very happy to be back in Qatar. The facilities are really wonderful for all the divers and the swimmers and we have seen a great competition and the Qatari hospitality is famous all over the world.”
Commenting on the record level of participation at the World Championships, he said: “We appreciate this very much as it shows the global appeal of swimming and the global appeal of the Olympic Games because they are all striving for qualification for Paris so I can only congratulate World Aquatics very much for this great result and this really global participation.”
Asked about men competing in artistic swimming for the first time at an Olympic Games, President Bach added: “We are looking for gender parity and this is what we’re going to achieve in Paris and for this mixed events are very much important because they encourage women in counties whose culture is not necessarily in favour of women’s sports to practice sport and to be involved and we can see very good results of these initiatives and in Paris we will be there with gender parity across all sports.”
IOC President Thomas Bach (left)
